


One of Those Nights

by BatmanWhoLaughss



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Bad Days, Blind Kanan Jarrus, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Kanan Jarrus Needs a Hug, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28618683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatmanWhoLaughss/pseuds/BatmanWhoLaughss
Summary: Kanan's been blind for a while, but occasionally he still has bad nights.
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla, The Ghost Crew & Kanan Jarrus
Comments: 9
Kudos: 70





	One of Those Nights

**Author's Note:**

> the world needs more slice of life domestic kanera and i will write it

Hera wakes up slowly, blinking the sleep from her eyes and trying to get her bearings. For a few moments, she’s not sure what woke her, but then she registers the absence of a warm body that was most definitely pressed against her back when she went to bed. A quick glance at the chrono reveals that it’s still the middle of the night cycle, and she sighs, her heart sinking. Stifling a yawn, she begrudgingly gets up and stretches languidly before venturing towards the common room, where she knows he’ll be. 

As expected, Kanan’s sitting at the small dejarik table, a mug of caf in front of him and his head resting against the booth. His eyes are closed, and the scar crossing them shines bright red against his brown skin. He makes no move to acknowledge her presence as she slides into the booth next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. She reaches to twine her fingers with his, and still he doesn’t move. 

After a minute, he opens his eyes. “I didn’t mean to wake you up,” he says. He glances down at her, curling his lips up at the edges into a not-quite-smile, but there’s something in his voice that gives her pause.

“You didn’t,” Hera murmurs. He’s still wearing the loose-fitting sleep shirt and pants that he wore to bed, and his body is warm where it’s pressed to hers. “What’s wrong?” Hera knows better than to pretend. Whenever Kanan wakes up in the middle of the night, it’s never for a good reason. 

Kanan sighs, grimacing as his head falls to lean against hers. “Just a dream.” 

She suspected as much. She’s no stranger to Kanan’s nightmares, and she’s spent plenty of nights staying awake with him when he couldn’t seem to rest. But the past few weeks have been relatively peaceful. “Want to talk about it?”

Again as she expected, Kanan shakes his head. “ ‘M alright,” he says, but there’s still a tension in his voice that Hera doesn’t like. “Just… just a bad night.” 

Hera feels her insides clench at how sad he sounds, and she squeezes his hand. “Tell me,” she says softly, leaning up to press a feather-light kiss against his cheek. 

He swallows, and she can practically see the gears turning in his head. For a moment, she worries he’s not going to say anything, but finally he groans, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands. “It’s stupid,” he finally says. 

Hera frowns, her concern growing as her hand moves to rub small circles against his back. “Not if it’s upsetting you. What’s going on?” 

Kanan is silent for a few moments. She’s still rubbing his back in a soothing pattern she knows he likes, when he finally speaks. “The first couple months after Malachor,” he begins, his voice impossibly soft. “I would dream all the time. I could still  _ see _ in those dreams, and every morning waking up would feel like being doused with a bucket of ice water.”

Her frown deepens. It’s been almost a year since he was blinded, and he’s come so much farther than she ever thought possible since then. Once he reconciled with Ezra, he adjusted relatively quickly, to the point that he almost never brings it up anymore.  _ If he’s lapsing back into the headspace he was in back then… _ “Alright,” Hera whispers. “And… tonight was one of those dreams?” 

She leans forward, trying to get a clearer look at his face as he nods. “Yeah. Haven’t had one in awhile. I know I’ve been blind for so long, and I’m used to not having vision by now, but… I don’t know. It threw me.” He grimaces at her again, and the way his mouth settles into a small frown pulls at her heart. “I told you, it’s stupid.” 

Hera wants to smack him. “It’s  _ not _ .” She puts a hint of her “Captain’s Voice” into her statement to make sure it gets through to him. When he glances up at her in surprise, the hand that’s now resting on his back makes its way into his hair. “Talk to me, love.” 

Kanan’s eyes slide shut again as her hand cards through his hair. It’s a moment before he responds, but when he does, his voice is small. “I’m used to being blind, but every so often I can’t help but wish…” he breaks off with a frustrated sigh, and Hera’s startled to see his lip tremble. “I guess I miss you.”

He must be able to sense her surprise, because he grimaces again. She stills for a moment, but then her hand starts up the steady motion through his hair again and her brow furrows in confusion. “I’m right here,” she says, trying to keep her voice even as her heart constricts even further. 

“That’s not what I mean,” he says, shaking his head. “I guess– Sometimes, when I picture what you all look like, it feels like little details get lost. Small things that I’ve forgotten as the months have gone by. It was scary as hell, in the beginning, but now it’s just… a part of my life. And on nights like this, it just makes me think.”

He glances up, opening his eyes as his lip trembles again. Even though he can’t see her, and his eyes don’t convey what he’s feeling the same way they used to, she can see everything he’s feeling written all over his face. “On nights like this it feels like, even though you’re all right next to me, I still miss you. It feels… lonely.” 

It takes all of her strength not to cry. He sounds so  _ sad _ , but also so resigned, like he’s felt this way so many times before and it’s just become a part of him now. And it  _ hurts _ ; she always hurts for him when he’s in pain, but the fact that he’s resigned himself to suffer in silence when he has nights like this makes it so much worse. 

When Hera doesn’t speak for a minute or so, Kanan gives her a rueful smile. “I’ll be okay. It’s just a bad night. It’ll pass– it always does.” 

“Kanan…” There’s a lump in her throat that refuses to leave, and her heart aches at the defeat in his voice. But she swallows it down– he doesn’t need her pity, he never has. “Is there anything I can do?”

The little shrug he gives her makes the lump come back in force. “Don’t know. It’s okay Hera, really. I’ll be fine.”

That tears it. He’s clearly trying to get her to go back to bed and leave him alone, but that’s  _ not _ happening right now. She’s not leaving him out here to stew in his own bad thoughts like this. 

“Hey,” Hera says after a moment, reaching for his hand again. He raises an eyebrow at her when she takes it, bringing it up to her face. Her lips press softly against his palm, and it draws a tiny smile from him that makes her feel a little warmer. “You’re not alone, you know? Not ever.” 

The smile gets a tiny bit bigger. “I know,” he whispers. 

The affirmation makes Hera smile too, and a moment later she pulls Kanan to his feet. “C’mon, love. You can do your brooding in bed where it’s warmer.” 

It makes him chuckle softly, and he nods as Hera leads him back towards her cabin. He’s still got that small frown on his face, but he doesn’t fight her, not anymore. In fact, it’s the opposite; it’s like all the fight has gone out of him suddenly and the weight on his shoulders has doubled in size. When they reach her quarters and crawl back into bed silently, he lets out another mournful sigh.

Kanan’s head comes to rest on her shoulder, his arm curled tightly around her waist as she pulls the blanket up over both of them. Her lips find his forehead. “Tell me what’s on your mind,” she says. “I don’t care if it’s stupid.” 

“I wanna see you,” Kanan mumbles, his eyes sliding shut as his frown gets deeper. The small statement makes her heart shudder again. “I miss seeing you smile, I miss seeing Ezra fight, I miss seeing whatever crazy color Sabine dyed her hair this time… I know I shouldn’t dwell on it, but I can’t help it, sometimes.” 

Hera nods, reaching for his hand as she struggles to hold back her own sadness. That’s not what he needs right now, and instead she guides his palm up to her face, so he can trace the shape of it. He perks up slightly when his thumb traces the curve of her smile, and his head burrows a little further into her neck.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “I can’t imagine what this has been like for you. I’ve tried to, but I can’t. I know it’s hard, but it’s okay to have a bad night every once in a while.”

“Jedi aren’t supposed to have bad nights,” Kanan says.

“ _ People _ have bad nights all the time, love. You don’t give yourself enough credit.” Her smile gets bigger, and from the way his eyebrow climbs, she knows he can probably tell. “I have an idea. Something that might make you feel better.”

He looks like he’s about to say something, but she rests a finger on his lips before he can. “Just trust me.” 

“Alright.”

“You can’t see,” Hera says, squeezing his hand again. “But you can still  _ feel _ us, right? You can sense us. So… don’t focus on what you  _ can’t _ do. Focus on what you can. How do we feel?”

Kanan is quiet for a minute, but Hera can see him mulling over her words. Finally he lets out a small laugh. “Have I mentioned I hate that you’re always exactly right?”

It makes her laugh too. “All the time, dear.” 

Then his voice gets serious again. “I can’t feel Chopper, really. At least not in the same way. But I can figure out where he is, usually, and he stands out from the rest of the ship. Zeb is… angry. A drive for vengeance mixed in with a sense of what’s right, and a soft side that comes out whenever he’s around the kids.” 

Hera’s smile gets bigger. He sees so much more than he gives himself credit for, even after he was blinded. “Sabine’s so passionate about everything she does… almost like a swirl of colors mixed together. She’s got so much energy and drive that it’s overwhelming sometimes, but it makes her who she is. Ezra is… a mix. He’s still got the echoes of all that anger and guilt, but he also has a good heart underneath. Sometimes I think he’s a much better Jedi than I ever was. And you…” 

He glances upwards, tilting his face towards her and blushing slightly before he continues. “You feel like a hearth,” he whispers. “Like safety and warmth rolled into one. You’ve got this drive to help people that runs through your whole body. And it spreads to the others sometimes too, I get echoes of it coming off of the kids every so often. It feels almost like a blanket.” 

His face is redder now, but she’s busy trying to keep from melting into a puddle at the sound of his voice. There’s so much pure reverence there, and this is the most open and honest she’s ever seen him. Her eyes are shining.

She can’t help but lean down to kiss him again, but it’s only a moment before she breaks away to lean her forehead against his. “You see?” She wills her voice not to tremble. “You’re not disconnected from us at all. You can still see everything, even without vision.”

“Hm,” Kanan says. “I guess not.” He’s smiling now, a real one instead of the one he was trying to put on earlier. He’s still blushing when he continues. “I love you, y’know? I know things have been… rocky, lately. But I do.” His face gets even redder, if possible. 

Hera leans down to kiss him again. “I love you too. Even when you have bad nights and keep me awake at some ungodly hour.” 

That gets a bigger laugh out of him. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, love. But we both really do need to sleep now. And next time, talk to me instead of running away, okay?” 

Kanan nods. “I will. I promise.”


End file.
